Boston is peculiar in its use of the word “fens.”
While the normal meaning of the word indicates swamps and marshes, the Fens here
is a name for a fine park in the residential section of the city. This in its
memory of the time when the Back Bay, just filled in, was full of swampy land―“fens”
in every dictionary sense of the word. Boston’s park planning resulted in not
merely converting its marshes into parks, but even in changing the meaning of a
word.

*

It is a full generation since the name
“Cambridgeport” has been heard. That name was formerly applied to the Kendall
and Central Squares district. The name is a relic of a time when the route now
used by the Cambridge Subway, from Central to the bridge, was waterfront―when
the present site of M. I. T. was the middle of the Charles River, and when the
river at high tide reached near Central Square, as witnessed by the name of
River Street. The name of Cambridgeport is gone with the rest.

*

It may be hard to believe now, but a
century ago the name “Back Bay” was heard of mainly in connection with the
expression ‘the Back Bay nuisance.” The fact is, though, that, from the time the
Mill Dam was built across the mouth of the bay in 1821, the pollution of the
Bay’s water began. The addition of two branch dams and two railroad trestles did
not help matters a bit in that regard, and for forty years there was a rising
tide of complaint against the menace to the city’s health. The ultimate result
was that the Back Bay was filled in. The Boston water Development Company, that
operated the Mill Dam for its tidal power, turned to land development instead,
and built up the Back Bay residential region where before had been “the Back Bay
nuisance.” Some parts, though out near Brookline Avenue, retained the old
pestilential atmosphere till recent years, when the region was cleaned out for
occupation by medical buildings and hospitals.

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That convenient terminology referring to
“North Station” and “South Station,” is believed to have been started by the
opening of the Atlantic Avenue elevated loop in 1901. Neither station was ever
officially called “North” or South”; but, with the first loop of rapid transit
trains, passing both of the new union terminal depots, these seemed the most
convenient designations.